A Request from AMDA's Executive Director
Between my pre-Annual Symposium phone calls and the meetings at the
annual symposium itself, I feel I've personally communicated with every
state president. As you know, the focus of my remarks in New Orleans
was the need to improve responsiveness. Last year's efforts to poll the
chapters on their needs and desires received a dismal response rate.
When I shared this information at the State Presidents Council meeting
in New Orleans, we had a frank and productive discussion about the
critical importance of completing the communication loop.
Yet here we are again. We got lots of feedback from you about what
we needed to do to get ready for the revised F-Tag 501 from CMS.
Interaction with the surveyors was the highest priority and the staff
hit the ground running when we returned. We've talked with CMS and
we've sent out letters to each of you to identify those of you who are
already working with your survey agency. Most encouraging, we contacted
the President of the Association of Health Facility Survey Agencies
(AHFSA), David Dunbar, and he was incredibly enthusiastic about joining
together to support training on the new interpretive guidelines.
In the past four weeks we've been trying to collect the information to
launch this important connection and we are still lacking a number of state
responses. I hesitate to list them here, but I am pleading with
each of you to make sure your state has responded. We have already
gone to CMS and the AHFSA, with the support of the AMDA leadership and pledged
our help. We need you to close the loop. If you don't have anyone who is
working with the survey agency just let us know and we will work with you
to identify a CMD in the area or another local volunteer, but we need to
provide a complete list.
Here's where the relationship we agreed on in New Orleans comes into
being with your response. It's the perfect real life example of how
national and state must work together to succeed. National can open
doors and provide materials, but if the states don't come through, we
will not succeed. Please contact Susan Gutierrez today at sgutierrez@amda.com or 410/992-3106 if you haven't already responded.
Lorraine Tarnove
AMDA Executive Director
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